


My Big Fat Gay Teen Wedding: The Afterparty

by sloblesbian



Series: Enstars High School AU [2]
Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 18:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10314272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloblesbian/pseuds/sloblesbian
Summary: self indulgent follow up to my self indulgent fic. a year after graduation.





	

In the year after they graduated, Izumi hadn’t imagined that he would find himself back in the woods with all his high school friends and acquaintances. Neither had he imagined himself drinking cheap vodka someone stole from their parents’ liquor cabinet, mixed with a bottle of diet coke he had brought along for himself. Where did the teenagers who were still in high school sneak out to drink unwatched? Maybe they knew to take the night off. 

 

He had just witnessed something he thought wouldn’t actually happen for years to come: Shu Itsuki had married his long time boyfriend, Mika Kagehira. The wedding itself, Izumi reflected, seemed like the antithesis of Shu. Outside, in his parents backyard, in the middle of a July heatwave. Guests in shorts and t-shirts, Izumi included. An assortment of mismatched card tables, folding chairs, and the like had littered the grass of the Itsuki’s lawn, the places set with paper plates and plastic silverware. There were elaborate matching centerpieces on each table, that Shu had made and kept rearranging until the very last minute, pushing his own guests aside to inspect. They looked completely out of place. 

 

But the ceremony had been nice. All of Shu’s failed attempts to turn this fourth of July backyard barbecue into the classy affair of his dreams faded away, and it became just two people, expressing how much they loved each other. It might not have been Shu’s dream wedding, but from his shining eyes the whole event, Izumi could tell it had been Mika’s.

 

Izumi sipped his vodka and coke and turned to the person next to him. Though the wedding had been a small affair, nearly every Yumenosaki student who had graduated in the last two years had showed up to the afterparty in the woods. Izumi recognized her, but didn’t know her name; she had been a junior when he was a senior, last year. She was looking across the clearing where everyone had gathered, to the elder Sakuma and his boyfriend.

 

“Does Oogami always wear a collar?”

"Mostly, but to be honest, he probably wore it specifically to piss of Itsuki." Izumi ignored Koga, 50 feet away, yelling 'I can hear you! Wolf ears, remember?' and continued. 

"Sophomore year, Shu harangued all his gay friends to join the GSA so he could have some, you know, actually gay people in it, and for some reason really locked onto Sakuma over there." Rei was standing next to Koga, who was still glaring daggers at them. He had somehow gotten a goblet of red wine from somewhere, despite the fact that everyone else was drinking shitty beer or cheap vodka. "He would find him at every available moment, talk up the group, all the important things Shu thought they would do, and just, relentlessly tell him that he needed him. Eventually, he did exactly what Shu wanted. He showed up to a meeting with Koga." Izumi paused, to let that sink in. "I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure it went something like," he began to mimic their voices, "'Sakuma, is your boyfriend wearing a collar?' 'Why yes. Is that a problem?'" He switched back to his regular speaking voice. "And then an uncomfortable sexual innuendo, an inappropriate anecdote about their sex life, a bizarre spiritual and/or supernatural belief presented as absolute fact." He took a sip from his drink. "They weren't even invited to the wedding. They just showed up."

"But I heard Koga caught the bouquet," she said.

"In his mouth," said her friend.

"Yeah," conceded Izumi. "I don't know what was funnier. His sneezing fit after spitting the bouquet out, or when he proposed to Sakuma." A ring glittered on Rei’s finger, but Izumi would bet money Koga had gotten it out of a gachapon machine in a grocery store for a quarter. Koga wore his usual embarrassing 2004 pop punk style, edge factor cranked to maximum, but Rei had toned down the goth aesthetic for the wedding. He had instead worn one of those tacky tuxedo t-shirts which, Izumi was sure, was rubbing salt in the wound that was Shu Itsuki. Still, everyone had escaped the wedding alive and unharmed. 

 

A pair of ice cold hands encircled Izumi’s waist, gathering the hem of his t-shirt, brushing Izumi’s stomach, skin on skin. “Hey,” came the muffled voice of Leo as he tried to put his chin on Izumi’s shoulder. 

“Hey yourself,” Izumi replied, pulling Leo’s hands out from under his shirt, but not releasing them, either.

“How was the wedding?” 

“It was fine,” Izumi said. He didn’t elaborate. Leo was being polite; he didn’t care for Shu, and that was putting it lightly. At least he hadn’t been suspended for punching Shu in the face. 

“Mmm,” Leo mumbled, having settled for putting his face into Izumi’s shoulder. “I’m cold. Let’s go back to your house and you can warm me up.” 

“It’s the middle of July, how can you be cold?” Izumi countered. But he didn’t say no.

“It’s night. We’re in the middle of the woods. My boyfriend is hot and there’s no one at his house.” It had been almost a year, but still: every time Leo admitted that there was something between them, the butterflies in Izumi’s stomach took flight. 

  
  


\---

 

The afternoon light filtered through Izumi’s windows with a nice breeze. It was hot, but it could be hotter, he knew. Most alarming, however, was Leo Tsukinaga, whom he hadn’t spoken with, or even really seen, in months, sitting on his bed, waiting for him. 

“Your mom let me in,” he said, when Izumi opened the door and saw him. He spoke with that softer, hidden Leo voice, the one Izumi only heard when they were alone. Izumi looked away, putting his bag on the floor, trying to ignore how much he’d missed this side of Leo.

“You can let yourself out then, I guess,” he said.

“Wait. I need to talk to you.” Izumi looked up. Leo’s gaze was directed towards his lap, where his hands lay, palms up, open. Izumi watched him for a moment, gathering his thoughts, or gathering his courage, but Leo didn’t break the silence. Eventually, Izumi turned around. He wasn’t going to force Leo to leave, at least not yet. But he wasn’t going to divert his attention to him, either. He sat at his desk, his back to Leo, and opened his laptop. 

 

Silence filled the room, broken only by momentary bursts of Izumi’s typing. Leo looked up and watched Izumi’s back, quietly amazed. _ He’s not even ignoring me the way he used to _ , Leo thought. _ In a way that made it obvious that he was. That made me know he was mad at me. He’s just completely cut me out of this moment. It’s like he’s forgotten I’m even here. He wants so little to do with me that he erases my existence, even when I am in the same room as him.  _ Leo had to admit that it was fascinating. He had to wonder, too, if maybe his reasons for coming here were selfish. He had hurt Izumi, had known that since the moment Izumi told him to cut it out, or maybe he knew even before that. He had done all sorts of stupid things to try to win Izumi’s attention back, and then, to make himself stop thinking about the things he had done. But he had never apologized. Maybe it would be best if he did leave. Izumi had moved on, Izumi was doing fine without him, much better than Leo was doing without Izumi. Izumi knew exactly who he was, and he shaped the world around him to fit. Leo was only just figuring himself out. It seemed selfish to ask Izumi to hold his hand while he did. 

 

It started soft, just a contented vibration in the back of Izumi’s throat, but it grew into a steady hum. Leo gazed in wonder at the boy, humming to himself while he worked.  _ He really did forget I was here at all. _ But his awe at Izumi lasted only a moment. It was quickly replaced by the hand of his emotions, gripping his heart, reminding him why he came. He couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t have feelings for Izumi. He had to admit it out loud.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, a cracked whisper, breaking Izumi’s tune. There was a beat, between when Izumi stopped humming, and when he replied. In someone else, it would have been a gasp of surprise Leo thought, _I startled him._

 

“What for,” Izumi replied, dry as ever. He hadn’t moved, still facing away from Leo, but he had stopped working. Izumi focused on his breathing and stared at the wall, willing himself not to turn around, not to look at Leo, Leo who was here in his bedroom. Uninvited, but he had to admit, after so long, not unwelcome. He didn’t want to make things easier on him. If Leo was going to apologize, it had to be real. He had to know what he did.

 

“I never thought about how you felt, about the things I did. I mean. I never thought about it, at all. Not outside of the moment, at least.” He stopped talking, and when Izumi didn’t reply, silence filled the air between them again. Now that he had Izumi’s attention, Leo felt the full brunt of it, the awkward force of being noticed in an uncomfortable situation. He had hoped Izumi would say something to make this apology easier, but he didn’t say anything. He was observing him struggle, like an insect pinned. 

“When I kissed you, I knew that you liked me. If I thought about it I would’ve realized how badly I could fuck things up. This badly, I guess. But I didn’t care, because, Izumi, I liked you too. I still like you, I love you, I can’t stop thinking about you and I never could, just, always, I want to text you in the middle of the night, and for you to reply no matter what time it is, I want to call you and hear your voice say nothing in particular, just so I can hear you, to listen to you complain, I want to tell you everything I think, I want to, to touch you and have you brush me away and then to touch you and have you let me, have you look at me softly, the way you look at no one else. I want to be the person I am when I’m with you, always. But I don’t know how to do that. I only know how to make things go wrong. I was built to drive people away, and I’m so good at it. The more I care about someone the more I make them hate me. But I don’t want to be that person anymore, Izumi.” 

 

Leo finished speaking and let out a small breath. He’d said all he had to say. If Izumi didn’t reply, he’d leave. If he wasn’t going to forgive Leo, well, Leo supposed he deserved that. But he waited for Izumi to reply anyway, patiently, quietly, so unlike himself.

 

Izumi couldn’t remember what he was doing before Leo started speaking. He was in the middle of something, an action he couldn’t remember initiating. All he remembered were Leo’s words, resonating within him, each one hitting him one by one and knocking him out of place. 

 

“I never thought you liked me,” he began, finally. “I mean. Not that way. I thought, Leo is confused and here I am. Izumi is pretty, Izumi is gay, Izumi is available and always around; who better to experiment with? Izumi will let me kiss him in the club room after dark. I thought I was just practice to you. Do you know how much that hurt? It hurt a lot, Leo, and it was so hard, so hard to stop talking to you. I wasn’t just stopping fooling around with you. We were friends, before all this. If I didn’t enjoy it, all the secret trysts, maybe it wouldn’t have, but I did, I liked it so much, and I liked you too, Leo, not just romantically but as a friend, and it hurt for you to do that to me, for you to not even think of how you were hurting your friend, Izumi Sena. And then you shove your poem in my locker- “

“Did you read it?”   
“Yes I read it, but not that copy, that one I threw out, because you dissected the entire lit mag and slid each individual sheet through my locker, Leo, what the fuck. You’re lucky I saw the issue later and put the pieces together. That doesn’t count as an apology, by the way. And then you, I don’t even know what you did, punch Eichi Tenshouin in the face?”

“Something like that.” 

“Well, anyway. I didn’t know what was going on. And then you show up in my room, unannounced, half a year later, after months of not speaking to each other. You sit on my bed in the dark and you tell me you love me. Leo, what am I supposed to do?”

  
  


\---

 

Mika sat on Shu’s bed. Their bed. Mika had his own bed, and his own bedroom, but next month they would be moving, a little apartment near the school they’d both be going to, again, finally. Though the window, the late afternoon sunlight dappled across the room, and Mika felt a rush of emotions. It was over. It was finished. But it had just begun. He looked up to where Shu stood, in front of his mirror, taking off his jacket, undoing his cufflinks and putting them away. In the mirror, Shu met his eyes, and Mika smiled. 

“Mmm, how do ya feel?” Mika asked.   
“Hmmm,” Shu began, echoing Mika, and Mika felt his happiness thrum inside of him, coming to life. “Good. Happy. Glad nobody lingered.” 

“You’re not mad that Sakuma and his boyfriend showed up?”

“Honestly, I was irritated when they did, and all the dumb little stunts they tried to pull. But they didn’t ruin anything. It wasn’t ever going to be the magnificent affair I imagined.” Shu began to unbutton his shirt, still facing his reflection. “They didn’t ruin anything for me, and they’re gone, now. The only thing that matters,” Shu said, “is that you were there, and it made you happy.” 

For a long moment, Mika’s tongue was caught in his throat. It was so unlike Shu to be so straightforward with his feelings. But, Mika had to concede, this was a day unlike most others. In the mirror, Shu’s eyes caught Mika’s again, and then Shu broke away, taking off his shirt, hanging it in the closet before turning around.

“And how do you feel?” he asked.

“Good. Happy,” Mika said, echoing Shu’s earlier reply. “Happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Oh?” Shu said, coming towards Mika. Putting his hand on Mika’s chest. Pushing him onto the bed. “I bet I could make you happier still.”

  
  


\---

 

“Koga,” Rei said, his voice serious, for once. “This ring is turning my finger green, and I can’t get it off.”

“What? Why would you take it off?” Koga replied.

“Because it’s turning my finger green.”


End file.
